Top 22 Germ Infested Places

Top 22 Germ Infested Places

Germs (viral, bacterial, or fungal) are everywhere! Because they are invisible, we often assume that it is not a problem. However, you can pick up E Coli and fecal bacteria, coliforms, staph-a, staphylococci, salmonella, coxsackievirus, campylobacter, rotavirus, lice, pinworms etc from public places as well as from your home. These dangerous organisms with their deadly toxins can cause major illness, damage to the gastrointestinal tract (ie. your gut), circulatory (eg blood and kidneys) and respiratory (eg lungs) systems. The following are the Top 22 Germ Infested Places (the list has been expanded since last posted) which you may come into contact on a daily basis:

Places in your Home that may be Germ Infested:

Toilet bowl: 3.2 million bacteria/square inch

Kitchen drain: 567,845 bacteria/square inch

Sponge or counter-wiping cloth: 134,630 bacteria/square inch

Bathtub, near drain: 119,468 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen sink, near drain: 17,964 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen faucet handle: 13,227 bacteria/square inch

Bathroom faucet handle: 6,267 bacteria/square inch

Bathroom sink, near drain: 2,733 bacteria/square inch

Pet food dish, inside rim: 2,110 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen floor, in front of sink: 830 bacteria/square inch

Toilet floor, in front of toilet: 764 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen counter top: 488 bacteria/square inch

Bathroom counter top: 452 bacteria/square inch

Garbage bin: 411 bacteria/square inch

Dish towel: 408 bacteria/square inch

Toy: 345 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen tabletop: 344 bacteria/square inch

Home office phone or refrigerator door: 319 bacteria/square inch

Toilet seat: 295 bacteria/square inch

Bathroom light switch: 217 bacteria/square inch

Microwave buttons: 214 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen chopping board: 194 bacteria/square inch

Child-training potty: 191 bacteria/square inch

Infant changing mat and infant high chair: 190 bacteria/square inch

Kitchen phone: 133 bacteria/square inch

Bathroom door’s inside handle: 121 bacteria/square inch

Toilet’s flush handle: 83 bacteria/square inch

TV remote control: 70 bacteria/square inch

Home computer keyboard: 64 bacteria/square inch

Home computer mouse: 50 bacteria/square inch

Bed Mattress (as many as 5 million dust/bed mites live in a double mattress and pillows)

Food Contamination: Under-cooked food, improperly washed fresh fruits and vegetables or food handled by unhygienic or infected persons can give you food poisoning. Whenever you dip a partially eaten potato chip (or cracker or any other food), you will add at least 100 bacteria onto the bowl of dip (sauce) each time you do it. So don’t share dips.

Interesting Fact: There are more bacteria in your mouth than there are people in the world.

What You Can Do To Reduce Germ Infested Areas in Your Home:

To avoid infection and getting sick:

Hand Washing – Wash your hands frequently and regularly, especially after going to the toilet, before and after preparing food, after touching animals and pets and if someone in your household is ill. It is important to use soap and water, scrub underneath your nails and the back of your hands and dry thoroughly with a paper or clean dry towel (Watch video on how to wash your hand thoroughly).

Surface Disinfection – Commonly touched surfaces should be regularly disinfected (FDA recommends a mixture of one part chlorine bleach to 10 parts water). Kitchen surfaces should also be cleaned and disinfected before preparing food and immediately after they have been in contact with raw foods such as meat and poultry, to reduce the chances of cross contamination.

Soap and water don’t actually kill bacteria, but they create a slippery environment so that they slide off. That’s why it’s so important that you rub your hands together with soap for at least 20 seconds (about as long as it takes to sing the Happy Birthday song twice), making sure to clean well between fingers and under the nails. Use warm water and work up a good lather all the way up to your wrists making sure all skin surfaces i.e. backs of hands, wrists, between your fingers and fingernails are given a good cleaning.

Anti-bacterial liquids and abrasive soaps (soaps with triclosan and other antiseptics) are not recommended as it upsets the skin’s normal flora, which is needed to keep more undesirable bacteria from taking over. It was also reported that anti-bacterial liquids and soaps is instrumental in the contribution to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Furthermore, the chemical, triclosan, in antibiotic soaps and liquids is said to kill human cells. A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a swab of your forearm may reveal up to 182 species of bacteria (8 percent of which were unknown).

Alcohol-basedinstant hand sanitizers which comprise mainly of alcohol are safe to use (must contain at least 60% alcohol to be effective). Hand sanitizers may kill germs but they do not remove dirt. So you still need to wash your hands with soap.

Do not wash your hands (and even other parts of your body eg face) vigorously so as to thin or damage the skin eg abrasive liquids or soaps or cause the removal of protective oils produced by your skin. Your skin is your first line of defense against bacteria and toxins. Protect broken or cracked skin from exposure to bacteria with necessary wound dressings. The presence of bacteria in your wound can prolong the healing process. The skin of the human body is alive with life – microscopic life of all kinds. In his classic work, Life on Man (1969), Theodor Rosebury estimates that there are 10 million individual bacteria living on the average square centimeter of human skin (155,000 per sq inch).

A straight 5 percent solution of vinegar—such as you can buy in the supermarket—kills 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold, and 80 percent of germs (viruses).

Avoid brushing your hands against youreyes, nose and mouth if your hands have come into contact with such high risk germ infested places. You should be extra vigilant when there is an epidemic or someone in your house has a contagious illness even coughs and colds.

Be sure to close the toilet lid before you flush the toilet to keep microbes inside the bowl from splashing as far as 20 feet onto you, counters and anything on them. These floating bacteria can stay in the air for at least 2 hours before settling on everything in the toilet / bathroom.

This health procedure is more critical in airplane toilets as the vacuum flushing effect from airplane toilet sends a strong volcanic-like gush of air upwards together with the hundreds of thousands of microbes. When 50 people from many parts of the world share one airplane toilet intensively, you can expect a whole host of exotic germs to abound. And for goodness sake, don’t open the door immediately after flushing with the toilet bowl cover up unless you want to flood the whole airplane with germs!

Use tissue paper, if possible, when making physical contact with high risk contaminated objects and discard the tissue paper immediately after.

Take high quality health supplements that build up your immune system like Unicity’s “Immunizen“

The 5-Second Rule

There is a kid’s rule that says if the food drops onto the floor, it is safe to eat it if you pick the food up within 5 seconds. There is no scientific evidence to this 5-Second Rule. Germs can jump onto the food as soon as it lands on the floor etc. So don’t practice this disgusting habit. Even if you are so poor, you can’t afford to throw away food, this practice is not recommended as your medical bills will be more than the cost of the food that fell onto the floor.

Remember, germs never sleep. They show no mercy. They are getting stronger. Germ Warfare is not a myth even in “disease-free”times. Germs are with us all the time. If you take the necessary precautions outlined above, you will be able to stay healthy and keep the germs from taking over your body.

Bacteria Testing Kits

There are many different commercial bacteria testing kits which will enable you to easily test for bacteria in your home or elsewhere. Some of the bacteria testing kits are simple devices (like test strips or test dishes) and do not need any special lab equipment. You can get to the online vendors offering such testing kits by typing: “bacteria testing kits” on any search engine and choose which kits meet your needs and budget.

You can also test if bed and living room furniture fabrics are clean by using an inexpensive battery operated UV light hand lamps. When all the lights in the room are switched off, UV light will show stains that may contain bacteria. Such stains will be lighter than the rest of the fabric under the UV light in the dark. This is particularly useful when you want to check if the bed sheets in hotels are clean. See the YouTube video below for more details on this.

Dirty Hotel Secrets! – Bedsheets. Find out how it affects you on YouTube:

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9 thoughts on “Top 22 Germ Infested Places”

Here’s a great option, StepNpull. It’s a simple bracket that attaches to the bottom corner of any commercial latch less door and allows the user to open the door with their foot instead of their hand. There is a short demo video on the website. http://www.stepnpull.com copy and paste link to your web browser

I love this huge list of germ filled areas. Nice work on all the research. I have my own list for hotel rooms. They are filled with a lot of germs! Top ten germ areas in hotel rooms may make you scared –